FERDINAND PORSCHE RIP

The death of Ferdinand (Butzi) Porsche last week at the age of 76 depletes the ranks of the icons of the motor industry.By my reckoning only Ferdinand Piech,Chairman of VW Group, and Charles Morgan Chairman/CEO of Morgan Cars remain -all the rest of the iconic car giants have gone .Dr Porsche was the genius responsible for Porsche's iconic products and in particular the 911.Every Porsche enthusiast owes him a big debt of gratitude.
Ferdinand Porsche followed his father's and grandfather's design principles.He preferred lightness and simplicity to bulk and complexity .We do not know what he thought of today's overengineered ,overspecified,overweight and overcomplex Porsches .I hope that he died peacefully of old age and not of shock at finding the latest 991 has electric power steering and an interior which took design cues from a turkish brothel.Or perhaps he saw an Australian retail price list .

FACES OF CAMBODIA

More photos from Cambodia.All taken with a Canon G7.I am particularly pleased with the first photo which was very much taken on the run with natural lighting. The camera has rendered the skin tones and the scarf beautifully .I reckon that I could easily claim that this was taken with a Leica M9 and a Leica lens and it would be accepted as fact.

CANON G7

Selling my beautiful 70-200mm lens and then posting some of the many images taken with it has been difficult as it has reminded me of what I could do with a big ,serious camera with a wide selection of lenses -- long and wide angle.Indeed a regular follower of the blog even emailed me and suggested that I made a mistake not persisting with my big gear .
So to balance the ledger I pulled up some of the images I took back in 2010 in Cambodia with my little Canon G7 -the predecessor to my Canon G9. Now all the gearheads who follow the photography forums are obsessed with the latest cameras -- indeed for them the gear is more important than the photos-- and they would instantly dismiss the G7 as a very outdated,inadequate little camera and not something a serious photographer would use .But take a look at these three shots-JPEGs straight out of the camera.The benefits of the little,easy to carry G7 on a trip to a very hot ,steamy place like Cambodia are immense where even carrying a light backpack with just a bottle of water,a rainjacket, a wallet and a small camera quickly becomes very tiring . OK, I do lose a lot in terms of not having big long lenses and wide angles but at least I always have my camera with me and a bag full of the best camera gear in the world is no use if it spends much of the time in a hotel room .With the G7 I lock it on the lowest possible ISO,set it on P program and take big files .I reckon the little G7 ( which you can pick s/h up for a song nowadays) gives a pretty impressive account of itself.

SYDNEY SUMMER 2012

We've just had a cool and very wet summer here on the east coast of Australia so this photo really sums up our summer.However something odd is going on with the weather because as we move into autumn the last 3 weeks and particularly this week have been glorious and this first week of April has been the warmest on record.It has been over 30ºC here in Terrigal and the pool has been really warm.

MORE FROM THE PIT LANE

Two more photos from that wonderful 1981 Italian Grand Prix practice session. Firstly Alain Prost in his Renault calmly waiting to go out for a fast lap -new slicks ready.He qualified third on the grid and won the race the following day .The second I have run before but it is one of my favourite racing shots because it is so atmospheric -Patrick Tambay's Ligier-Matra on pit lane on a hot Italian September afternoon with that haze you get in N Italy at that time of year. I can still remember being there .This shot has it all -- including the pit lane dolly girl.Olympus OM2 -28mm lens Kodachrome.

GILLES

I was looking through the archives and found another wonderful photo taken during the saturday afternoon practice for the 1981 Italian Grand Prix at Monza . Excuse the size but I wanted to show  the detail .Taken by me on my Olympus OM2 with a 28mm lens on Kodachrome it shows Gilles Villeneuve just having climbed out of his Ferrari .Sadly Gilles was killed a few months later in an horrific accident during practice for the Belgium Grand Prix at Zolder . He was a real racer and a very gifted driver .On this particular day even his magic could not get him up higher than 9th on the grid and he retired early in the race on the next day .

Look at those great big, blistered doughnut slicks on the car and the wonderful relaxed scene with the small girl asking Gilles for his autograph .Today the pit Nazis would never have allowed the girl within cooee of the paddock entrance and his helmet and gloves would not have rested on the rear wing -a coiffured minder would have taken them from him( sponsors names towards cameras) before he climbed out of the car .Now it's all gone - except Ferrari and Monza and I am sure that Monza only still have a grand prix because of Ferrari otherwise Bernie would have given the Italian GP slot to Thailand or North Korea or some other unlikely place.All very sad --we have lost so much including Kodachrome. But at least we Australians have V8 Supercars and the Americans have NASCAR.The last sentence is irony .

BAD TRIP

Another beautiful day.After a cool wet summer the last few weeks have been beautiful and really warm and dry .I was even in the pool on Saturday and it was very pleasant.Today,Sunday,we went down to Sydney and packed a lot into the day including a great yum cha lunch in very ethnic Marrackville.I took quite a few photos but none were captured by the camera -it read them with a message -"unidentifiable image".It looks as if the SD card which has been used many times is corrupted which is a first for me.I have reformatted it and it seems to be OK now but can I trust it?Probably not worth risking so I will junk it.So it was a bad trip from a photographic point of view but a great day otherwise.Sorry I can't share my photos .

MORE BIG CATS

My big cat photos have proved to be very popular so here by popular demand are a few more.All,except one, were taken in Botswana with a Canon 5D -70-200mm lens on Velvia film .The other shot was taken in the wilds of Glebe,Sydney on a Leica M6 also on Velvia.
The image of the cheetah walking away is one of my favourite African photos .

 

BMW TWINNIE

This great little Porsche 550 inspired BMW powered special was on display at Essen .It has a spaceframe with a fibreglass body and is powered by a BMW flat twin motorcycle engine with cooling air forced through by two electric fans .No details on whether it has reverse gear or whether this is provided by the passenger getting out and pushing although the gearbox looks like it maybe car sourced .The build and detailing are obviously superb.
It looks like a great little hillclimb car or something for a quick run through  the Bavarian backroads on a beautiful Sunday morning .

Photos by Patrick Wheeler .

TECHNO-CLASSICA ESSEN

The annual Techno-Classica Essen has just been held last weekend. It is the world's biggest show devoted to old cars and bikes .It is a mecca for classic car enthusiasts particularly enthusiasts of German marques .Sadly I did not go--I will one day- but friend Patrick went seeking gear for his BMW bike and armed with his Canon S90 . He came back with some interesting photos including one of this must have accessory for your classic BMW- a complete beer dispensing kit and bar . Look at the engineering.Only in Germany .

SAME OLD SONG

I was not going to comment on last Sunday week's Australian Grand Prix as I thought I stood the risk of sounding like a broken record but a few friends have chided me so I have to say that it was just boring .Very boring .Jason Button was on pole and lead from start to finish.The TV commentators tried to make it all sound exciting -that's what thay are paid to do after all - but even their frantic babbling could not hide the fact that nothing much happened .To be fair I watched the first 20 mins and returned for the last 20 mins (I had more interesting things to do) but nothing had changed during my absence.

There was story in the Sydney Morning Herald on Friday saying that it was boring and a quote from Ferrari driver Alonso that F1 is a technical sport and is not intended to be exciting ! Silly old me to have got it wrong for all those years- maybe I should have been watching synchronised swimming if I'd wanted excitement .

There was also a story in the Australian Financial Review on the Friday before the race where the chief executive of the AGP was raving about the lavish new corporate hospitality area and the many hatted chefs turning out amazing gourmet fare for the corporates .No mention of any racing for the fans .

I can't offer any prescription on how to "fix" F1 .Above all else I reckon that the problem is cultural .At the end of the day people are trying ( and suceeding) in making a lot of money out of F1 and they really don't care a fig whether we think it is exciting or not .It is just a very big,ugly business and a lot of people have hitched their wagons to Bernie's money train -- including the big team owners-- and they are not going to rock the boat .

Since writing the above I watched some of the Malaysian GP last night and it was more exciting but only because the procession of the usual suspects was interrupted by heavy rain which stopped the race and forced a delay and a restart when the usual suspects got jumped by a few others ."Technical" driver Alonso won it in a Ferrari .I did notice that Malaysians are not enthusiastic about the grand prix as the stands were very empty and many of the public enclosures were almost totally empty.I wonder how long the Malaysian govt will go on paying Bernie a small fortune to stage a race which has so little local support?

Anyway a photo from a different time ( when I went to the races and I could get into the pits ) -- the then mighty Williams team on the pit lane at during saturday's practice for the Italian GP at Monza in 1981 with Alan Jones just climbing into his car .Frank Williams is in the centre left of the picture giving directions .Picture by me on my Olympus OM2 with a 28mm lens on Ektachrome film .I just cropped this into a square picture for a change .